Snarky Scars
by ThanatosNyx
Summary: Severus Snape has a problem with the new DADA professor (as always) but this time it has less to do with the stolen position and much more to do with an awful history. Set in GOF Hogwarts without Moody (of you like him, sorry).
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1- Start of term

Harry and Ron wandered partway down the row of bench at the Gryffindor house table and found themselves space between Neville and Seamus. Ron fell almost immediately into a conversation with Seamus about the Quiddich cup, leaving Harry free to momentarily inspect the enchanted ceiling, which showed the twinkling stars. He tried to remember if he had ever seen the ceiling overcast. He supposed that gloomy skies where not part of the enchantment. He turned his attention to the head table, his eyes drawn to Hagrid first. Hagrid nodded his head, Harry returned the gesture, smiling. He let his eyes slide further down the table. Snape was looking as menacing as ever. Harry wondered if he had been passed over for the Defense Against the Dark Arts position yet again. He hoped so. Harry had no intention of continuing potions, but was certainly going to keep studying how to defeat the Dark Arts. The sorted new students were awkwardly answering the friendly questions of older students, scattered along the length of the table. Harry hoped there would not be another Colin Creevey in this lot. As he sat waiting for Dumbledore to give his traditional speech, he noticed a student sitting beside Professor Flitwick. She had a piteously short crop of inky black hair that was shaped into a mohawk which tilted forward, quite long in the front, ending in a shock of unnatural white which fell over one eye. He felt certain that some Slytherin (he knew she wasn't a Gryffindor, Ravenclaws were too smart to do something like that and Hufflepuffs wouldn't have dared to) had lost a bet and that she would be pointed toward her seat by one of the faculty as soon as she was noticed.

Minutes ticked by and no one else seemed to notice she was there. He looked around the hall. A few students were looking at the staff table, but they seemed more bored than amused by this very obvious prank. The rest were talking animatedly to neighbors. He looked down the staff table, where his professors were either talking amongst themselves or looking out over the assembled students. The corner of Harry's mouth curled into a half grin, sharing the troublemaker's victory, since no one else seemed to realize she was even there. For a second, her eyes met his and she flashed him a brilliant smile. Harry was so shocked when their eyes met that he gave a sort of grunt and quickly looked away. Ron gave him a curious glance and returned to fanatically praising Victor Krum. When Harry looked back at the prankster, she had her attention focused on her house table.

To Harry's great surprise, when Dumbledore did get to his feet, he not only failed point the Slytherin back to her seat, but smiled so warmly at her when he looked down the staff table, that Harry began to wonder if she could be a visiting relative of his. He quickly conjured a Dumbledore family portrait in his head with the headmaster in a hideous Christmas sweater with his arm around the shoulder of the unusual Slytherin who was adjusting holiday antlers atop her head. To Harry's even greater surprise, when Dumbledore announced the new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, she stood. Evidently, she was there temporarily as a favor to the Minister of Magic to help with the preparations for the Triwizard Tournament that would take place that year. Even as the headmaster explained why she was there, Harry began to dislike her. Now the ministry was placing faculty members to gain information on the going ons of Hogwarts? He wondered if Dumbledore had been forced to let her teach this year after the minister discovered that Voldemort had loyal followers who were determined to help him rise to power. But the minister hadn't discovered that at all. He still maintained Sirius' guilt, since Pettigrew had escaped at the end of last year. Then again, maybe she was just helping with the tournament. Since one had not been held since 1792, presumably no one at Hogwarts or the other schools had been alive back then, they likely needed as much help as they could get to make it a success.

What was even more bizarre than the new professor was the reaction of several of the staff at the announcement of her name. Evidently, more than a few of the faculty had been shocked by their proximity to Professor Thanatos Kane. Several, including Professors McGonagall and Sprout, were nearly slack-jawed, staring down the table at the recent addition. They recovered quickly enough, but Snape became and remained downright murderous. He did not look toward the slip of a woman a few seats away, but at the table in front of him, boring holes through it with his eyes. Even when the feast appeared, Snape did not move.

Harry pointed out Snape's unusual behavior to Ron, who shrugged and suggested that he was just not hungry through a mouthful of potato. Hermione frowned at the projected potato bits that had landed very near Harry's arm.

"Well, why aren't you eating, Harry?" She asked looking pointedly at his empty plate.

Harry was pulled out of his musings. He began helping himself to the mouthwatering feast. The new professor was forgotten. Harry, Ron and Hermione spent the rest of the evening catching up with friends in the common room before making their way to their dormitories to turn in for the night.

The next morning, as Professor McGonagall passed out schedules, Harry nearly choked on his toast when he saw he had defense against the dark arts and double potions. After breakfast, he and Ron followed Hermione to the third floor to Professor Kane's lesson. The classroom had yet again changed to suit its inhabitant. None of the creatures Professor Lupin kept were there, instead there was a heavy curtain partitioning off a large section of the room. There were about a dozen chairs set up in two rows in front of a rickety looking blackboard. Harry and Ron took chairs in the second row, while Hermione sat in front of them, pulling out the assigned textbook, prepared to take meticulous notes. As the class trickled in, Harry noticed that they were all Gryffindors. When Seamus stumbled in and took the last chair, it occurred to Harry that he had not had a class without another house. They always seemed so intent on encouraging cooperation that he wondered why this class was different. Besides the eccentric-looking teacher.

Almost as soon as he had thought of her, she appeared in the doorway to the class. Harry had never seen anything like what she had on before. Instead of robes, she had on thick, worn leather pants and a leather vest. The sleeves of her grey shirt were rolled up to her elbows. Most of her lower arms were covered in what looked like vambraces. None of his classmates seemed to know quite what to make of her either. They simply watched as she walked past the front row, tilting her head slightly at the sight of Hermione with her book and parchment and quill balanced precariously on her lap.

"There will be no note-taking in this class. Please put away your books, they will only be used as a reference should you need it." Although Professor Kane had spoken kindly, Hermione sulked as if she had been scolded, grudgingly tucking her things back into her bag. "You had Remus Lupin last year, is that correct?"

As she asked this, she turned to face the class. More shocking than her clothes, was her face. Although her hair hid one, she had sharp, clear gray eyes. Harry could see this because she was looking straight at him. He felt keenly and perhaps irrationally that she could see every secret he had ever had, that every thought was exposed to those penetrating, peculiar eyes. He let his gaze slip to the rest of her face. She had smooth, fair skin and a straight, strong nose. The angles of her cheekbones were rather sharp, making her look severe, in contrast to her now smiling mouth. When he looked back into her eyes, they were gliding over the faces of the rest of the students. His classmates were nodding in response to her question.

"I understand that his methods were practical based as well," she paused looking for their nods of affirmation before continuing, "And what have you covered already?" Hermione's hand shot into the air.

"We have covered everything through hinkeypunks in the old textbook, as well as werewolves."

"We haven't done werewolves!" Dean interrupted. He looked around at the class who were shaking their heads. "Professor Lupin told us we didn't have to do that paper, so we didn't." Hermione huffed and rolled her eyes. She clearly expected the rest of the class to have at least read the chapter even if they didn't have to write the paper.

"Professor Lupin assigned a paper on werewolves and then decided against it? How odd." As Professor Kane spoke, she was half grinning, amused by the idea. Her eyes darted to Hermione for a moment before settling back on Dean.

"Snape was filling in for Lupin and he assigned the paper," Dean corrected.

"Professor Snape, Mr. Thomas. Yes, I see." The latter part she said almost to herself. "Very well, I will modify my lessons accordingly. Thank you, Mr. Thomas and Miss Granger." She spun around, drawing her wand. "Today, I will acquaint you with creatures known as Hairiri. Hairiri are typically found in burned places. They are a nuisance as they particularly enjoy fireplaces. The ministry has had quite a time keeping them from attacking muggle chimneysweeps." Harry frowned when she mentioned the ministry. As she spoke, her words scrawled themselves across the chalkboard, spidering out small and spiky, barely legible. "Now, if you will pull out your wands, the spell to deal with Hairiri is 'Eximo'." As she said it, she flicked her hand twice, quite quickly. She went on to show them the wand movement slowly, stopping to correct Neville twice. After ten minutes, when the rest of the class had gotten the motion, Harry looked around to see what else Professor Kane had to teach them, but she had vanished. He turned to Ron who was still practicing. A moment later, he saw her slip though the open door followed sheepishly by Neville. "Are we ready to face a Hairiri?"

The Gryffindors nodded timidly. Professor Kane padded over to the curtain in the back corner of the class. The cluster of fourth years haltingly followed. She began to draw back the curtain, but as the curtain moved, a wave of nauseating heat and acrid smoke billowed out. Harry suppressed a cough as his throat instantly went dry. It only took a moment for the sick feeling to subside. Behind the curtain stood a cage, taller than the professor and inside it was a shimmering black bird with a long, thin tail. The bird was no bigger than a fist, but its tail must have been four feet long. Its tail had a number of triangular fins that glowed like embers. The hairiri looked as though it might have been made of fire and smoke. It floated lightly about waist high, letting about a foot and a half of its tail glide over the base of the cage. When Professor Kane stepped closer, however, it smashed itself, spitting and clawing against the bars trying to get at her. It had been frighteningly fast. Her eyes did not leave the creature as she spoke to her class.

"You see now, why they are troublesome. Hairiri are fiercely territorial and their territory consists of about a two foot radius from wherever it happens to be located. They are wickedly fast and very vicious. Their claws are small, but very sharp and they use them to inflict whatever superficial damage they can before they use their tails." They all dropped their eyes from the frenzy of claws striking out between the bars to its tail which was flicking impatiently just above the cage floor. Harry didn't know if it was his imagination or if the hairiri's tail had become much more red, so much so that it and its fins seemed to almost be on fire. "When I grab it, Miss Brown, you will be the first to try your luck with the spell."

Lavender gave a small squeak and clutched her wand harder. Professor Kane opened the cage door and quick as a flash, wrapped her bare hand around the tiny bird. As her fingers curled around the tiny black body, its four feet of tail snapped around her forearm so quickly, one second it was silver from the vambraces, the next it was dazzling red. The tail had wrapped itself from her wrist nearly to her elbow in a blink. There were no gaps between the coils either. Harry was dumbfounded. The rest of the fourth years were equally so, judging by their open mouths.

"Eximo," Lavender's voice cut through the silence. Her wand sent a distinctly blue spark toward the creature, who hissed and shifted slightly on Professor Kane's arm.

"Good. Very good. As you get more practice, your spells will get stronger. Miss Patil, you're next."

They each lined up to have a go and even went two and three times. Even Neville got an affronted hiss out of the beast. As they came on an hour, however, Professor Kane waved them to stop, cast her own spell at the hairiri, which sent a dark blue orb of smoke that enveloped the creature and then dissipated, leaving no sign of the shimmering bird. She unbuckled the vambraces and pulled them off, setting them on one of the lower steps that led up to her office. Under the braces she had on some kind of knit sleeves. Turning away from the class who were in the process of resuming their seats, while excitedly discussing how much they had enjoyed the class, she pulled off the knit sleeves, and removed the vest. When she turned back, Harry noted that she had rolled down her shirtsleeves. He also happened to notice that she was more slender than he had originally thought. Without the bulky vest, she was- well, she was quite lovely. She moved to brush her bangs aside, but partway through the action, she froze. Her pause was only for a second, but he noticed it. He also noticed a pearly sheen to her skin sometimes when she moved. Harry decided that he must have imagined the pearly thing, maybe his eyes were adjusting funny to having watched the ember creature for so long, but the hesitation? That, he knew he hadn't imagined.

When she dismissed the class, Professor Kane asked Hermione to stay to talk with her. She smiled warmly at Harry as he and Ron exchanged glances and gathered their things to go. As they left the classroom, they saw Hermione and Kane start up the stairs, Kane stooping to retrieve her discarded vambraces as she went.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2- Day one

Hermione raced into the potions classroom, tossing her bag up onto the counter just as Snape swept in. His narrowed eyes swept over the students, settling on the panting Hermione.

"Nearly late to your first class, Miss Granger. Tsk."

"Professor Kane wanted to speak with me after class, Professor." At the mention of the name, Snape flinched. His scowl deepened.

"Do not bore me with details, Miss Granger." He turned his back on her and flicked his wand toward the blackboard in the front of the classroom. A terribly complicated wound sealing potion scrawled itself across the surface. "You will have an hour to prepare this and I will test all of your attempts at the end of class."

There was something extremely menacing about the way he said 'attempts' and Harry and Ron were at a loss for how he would test a wound sealing potion when none of the class were, in fact, wounded.

As they set about grinding yarrow leaves, Ron asked Hermione the question that had been bothering him since the end of the last class. "What did Kane want to talk to you for?"

"She wanted to know exactly how much I knew about Lupin's 'condition'."

"Oh, is that all? Seems like most of the school knew by the end of the year." Hermione rolled her eyes at Ron acting like he had known before the night at the Shrieking Shack, even with the assigned essay. She intentionally did not tell Ron that Professor Kane had asked about Neville, Harry and a few other Gryffindors, knowing that he would likely become upset that she had not asked about him. Actually, Hermione couldn't help but feel flattered that the new professor would chose to ask her about the strengths and weaknesses of her classmates, but couldn't shake an ugly undercurrent of suspicion about the same thing. She had never heard of a teacher who gathered information about students from their peers. The hesitation had made her only volunteer information that was so obvious that Professor Kane had probably already guessed at it from watching them practice and perform spells in class. What struck her the most was how many questions the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher had asked about Harry. Hermione had been downright uncomfortable when Kane had asked what his weakest spells were. She had lied, saying that he wasn't all that good with a wand at all. She blushed, thinking about lying to a teacher. She glanced over to Ron, who was chucking ingredients into his cauldron haphazardly, his potion emitting a noxious yellowish cloud. Her eyes moved to Harry who was looking at her with a somewhat curious expression, no doubt wondering why she hadn't gotten very far into making her potion and why she was blushing down at her untouched bat wings. She offered him a half smile and set to work on her assignment. He watched her a moment more and got back to work on his.

At the end of the period, they were all pleasantly surprised when Snape was content to walk around the class, marking off for color and consistency, rather than maiming students to see if their potions worked. Somehow, even Neville had managed to get in the ballpark of the brownish-orange paste that would eliminate the possibility of infection. Perhaps having double potions would not be so bad after all. As they collected up their things, however, Snape assigned them an absurdly long essay on the possible uses of frog spleen and how to properly prepare it, since, he said, that is why none of their sealing potions had quite the proper gel texture.

Relieved to be out of the dungeons at last, Harry, Ron and Hermione practically ran to drop off their books in the common room before heading down to Hagrid's hut.

"Was hopin' ye'd be coming by 'arry. 'Ow were yer firs' classes?" He was smiling broadly as he greeted them outside the door.

"Defense against the dark arts was brilliant!" Ron volunteered exuberantly.

"Yes, we already started on the Eximo spell." Hermione began. Hagrid beamed happily at her, stepping aside as she continued. "Im not sure what to make of Professor Kane yet though." Hermione was looking at Hagrid as she spoke, and in so doing, was completely oblivious to the fact that Harry and Ron had stopped short crossing the threshold of the door, causing her to collide with their backs. "Ron, what are you-," even as she said it, her eyes came to rest on what had stopped them: Professor Kane herself, sitting on the floor with her legs crossed, Fang's head across her lap, an enormous mug in one hand and a large rock cake in the other. "Professor Kane! We were just-." Her words died before they left her mouth as the spunky educator shot her a look of hurt disbelief and untangled herself from the huge dog and her libations. Ron and Harry were no help as they stood awkwardly watching; they were as confused as ever as to what was happening. Hermione never spoke ill of teachers, especially not in front of them and they had both been under the impression that Hermione had liked the new DADA professor. All three of them just stood there as Kane deposited her mug and cake on the table and slid around them and out the door. Outside, she offered a nod and a weak grin to Hagrid before making her way across the grounds to the castle.

Hagrid entered and closed the door behind him. He said nothing and stood frowning at the floor. Ron and Harry were still staring at Hermione.

Finally, Hagrid broke the silence. "Wha' gives, 'ermione?"

"I didn't know she was here!" She wailed desperately.

"I thought you liked her!" Harry mumbled. Ron nodded vigorously, since his mouth didn't seem to want to work.

"I do like her."

"Then why did you just say that?"

"It wasn't supposed to come out like that- er, what I mean to say is..." Hermione was bright red and stuttering. They had never seen her quite this out of sorts. "I just don't know if I trust her."

"What?! Why?" Harry knew it was stupid to be this defensive: he didn't know anything about the new professor, but for some reason, he was absurdly angry that Hermione was making snap judgements about Professor Kane.

"She asked me a bunch of questions about you today. It wasn't right. I didn't know what to do." As they stared angrily at her, tears started to run down her cheeks and her breath caught, making it hard to speak and harder for them to understand her.

"Who did?" Hagrid, at last was trying to calm the situation down a bit in spite of being incredibly confused.

"Pro- fe- ss- or- K- k- ka- ne d-d-did." By this time, Hermione was a sobbing mess. Harry and Ron were looking at her with a mixture of horror and rage. When Hagrid saw them out of the corner of his eye, he waved his hands at them which seemed to snap them out of whatever was going on in their heads. Their faces became more neutral and then concerned for their crying friend. Hagrid put an arm around Hermione's heaving shoulders. When he motioned to the mug the professor had left, Ron passed it to him. The giant man passed it to Hermione, who took a swig, choked on it's contents and spit it back in the mug.

"No taste fer brandy, 'mione?" He chuckled a little at her extreme reaction. Luckily, she laughed a little too. When she was feeling a little more like herself, she tried to explain her comment about Professor Kane. Ron agreed with her that it was odd for a teacher to ask her about Harry, but as she had guessed, also complained that she had not asked about him. Harry couldn't help wondering why she had asked about him as well. Hagrid seemed to know more than he let on, but he refused to comment beyond stating that both he and Dumbledore trusted her implicitly and that she would likely be one of the best professors they would ever have. By the time they had all gotten comfortable and lightened up, the sun had long since gone down. Hagrid walked them back to the castle.

"He has a point you know," Ron was saying as they made their way to Gryffindor tower. "Dumbledore wouldn't have her here unless she were trustworthy."

"She could be like Snape though."

"Professor Snape." The subject of their discussion slinked out of the shadows behind them, his voice dangerously quiet. "Who could be like Professor Snape?"

Unable to think of a lie on the spot, Hermione blurted out the truth. "Professor Kane."

His already sallow complexion went ashen, a sour expression flitted across his features and was as quickly gone.

"Twenty points from Gryffindor for being out of bed." He whispered it.

"But, professor, its only 8 o'clock!"

His voice was stronger now, "and ten more for your cheek, Mr. Weasley."

They moved a little faster now, to get to the tower before they were discovered by another teacher and lost even more points. As they went, they now couldn't help but conjecture about Snape's weird reactions to the new professor. Harry told them about what he had noticed during the start of year feast and Ron pointed out that he had never seen them talk, but his argument fell apart when Harry reminded them that she had only been there two days and that as far as they had seen, Snape didn't speak to a number of the faculty members. They decided to keep their eyes open, but wrote anything else off as coincidence for the time being.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3- Two of a kind

Of course, as their interest was now peaked, it was only natural that the two professors that they most wanted to watch interact were never even in the same room, let alone in closer proximity to one another. Professor Kane seemed to sit on the one side of the head table and spent her mealtimes reading a large volume, while Snape sat on the other pushing food around his plate with the utmost concentration. She was on the third floor and he was in the dungeons, so they had no reason to meet except meals. It wasn't even practical to try to mention the other's name because Professor Kane seemed to have decided to distance herself from her students after Hermione's betrayal and Snape hated them and was therefor impossible to talk to.

On Monday, when the Gryffindors were assembled in Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom waiting to see what the day's lesson would consist of, two remarkable things occurred. The first being the entrance of an enraged potionsmaster. As they sat eagerly looking about the class, the door crashed open with such violence that bits of wood littered the ground near the wall, knocked off when the heavy thing smashed against it with a deafening bang. Snape was beside himself with rage. He was somewhat crouched in the opening, breathing in shallow, quick gasps, wand drawn and ready to hex someone into oblivion. His knuckles were white, blanched over bone where he clutched his wand so hard his hand was trembling. His eyebrows were furiously knit over fathomless black eyes. Snape was half mad and completely terrifying.

"WHEREISSHE!?" The words exploded from him in one blast. One or two students cringed at the words like they had been physically hit by them. Neville was under his chair trying to make himself as small as possible. None of them responded. They were so shocked, none of them could. Snape took one step into the room. "Where. Is. She." He had focused all his anger toward Lavender Brown, who happened to choose the seat closest to the door. All the poor girl could do was stare at him open-mouthed. Her eyes suddenly darted over his shoulder. Snape whirled around, ending up looking down his nose at the upturned face of Professor Kane. His fury seemed to pour over her, but she did not buckle.

"What can I do for you, Professor?" She was speaking through clenched teeth. Harry found himself holding his breath, his attention riveted to the confrontation taking place before their eyes. Almost as soon as he thought it, Snape's cloak disappeared out of the room and the wooden door hastily closed behind him.

Once the door had clicked shut, Kane let go of the front of Snape's robes, but her wand remained where it was, tip digging into his chest just below his heart. His was thrust so hard beneath her jaw that her head was tilted up and away and she found it was nearly impossible to swallow properly.

"You expelled two of my students?" His voice was silky and low, far more dangerous than if he had been shouting.

"I didn't," as she began to speak, an involuntary jerk of his hand jabbed the wand harder into her throat, making her hesitate. "I can't expel students." As she said this, in spite of the wand, she brought her chin down so their eyes met. In one fluid movement, he removed his wand and replaced it by wrapping the long fingers of his free hand around her throat. As soon as his fingers slid across her skin, she shuddered and slammed her shoulder into his chest so hard it took his breath away. He was bent double, trying to get air while she looked down on him, her face an unreadable mask. "How DARE you touch me." Her tone was so cold, it chilled his bones.

His rage instantly ebbed. She was right. She could not expel students, and if Dumbledore had chosen to remove two of his students on her recommendation, there was nothing he could do about it. It was why she was there, not to educate students, but to protect them. For a week now, he had been living in constant turmoil. Regret and remorse that it was impossible to put words to had haunted his every moment since the start of term feast. And in his frustration over a decision concerning his students being made without his input, he had taken complete leave of his senses. He was at a loss as to what would make him go to her, of all people. She was the one person who hated him more than he hated himself. And what is more, he had laid a hand on her. His stomach rushed to his throat so fast he was fortunate to still be bent over struggling to breathe. The nausea passed after a few moments. When he was able to stand again, he righted himself to find that she had slipped back inside her classroom. He headed straight to Dumbledore's office to explain what had happened and hand in his resignation.

Back in the classroom, Professor Kane began her lesson completely unperturbed by her altercation with the incensed dungeon bat. She started the class off with basic information on the location and conditions under which one might find a hag. She went slowly through the information, correctly judging that the students were still stupefied by the scene that had just taken place in her doorway. Their expressions ranged from shock to confusion to terror, the most out of place being that of Mr. Longbottom, whose bizarre half grin gave the distinct impression of infatuation. She sighed, once again thinking that this posting had been a terrible idea. The potionsmaster was unhinged by her proximity, and she had no business teaching lessons. As the shock of the morning's incident wore off, her students became more responsive to the information she was giving them. After an hour, she left and returned leading a hunched, hooded figure to the back of the classroom. She showed them exactly where and how to draw wards around where they wanted the hag to be, where to stand with amulets to lure the creature into their wards. When she had taught them all she could, she turned the hooded figure toward them, got the nods that the first three students were ready to face the hag and removed the cloak from the figure. As soon as the hood was removed, the students gasped. This hag was more or less an old woman with only skin stretched across her bones and eyes sunken into black pits. She did not seem to have a lower jaw or mouth, her face just ended in blackened tatters of flesh below her nose. Despite her lack of eyes, the hag knew where each of the students was, but seemed confused about how to go about attacking them. A hag typically attacked from behind, wrapping her long fingers around the neck of the unknowing victim and throttling them. With all her would-be victims facing her, the hag could not attack. At the same time, Dean and Seamus spun around, showing their backs to the hag. She advanced toward them immediately. Harry shouted to get them to turn again, and the hag stopped in place. Harry and Dean then spun around. When Seamus spun them back, the hag was right where she needed to be in the wards. Each of the boys stepped onto the chalk drawing, shouted "LAQUEUS." and without even a sound, the hag crumbled to a pile of ash.

"Very good, boys. Five points to Gryffindor for an outstanding performance against your first hag." Professor Kane was grinning when she turned to the rest of the class. "I hope the rest of you were paying close attention to the warding and incantation, since you will be doing this next week when I have found a couple more hags. As you can imagine, they are difficult to come by in Northern England in the autumn." She was relieved when Parvati made a joke to the effect of the weather being nearly cold enough for them lately, but not quite and pointing to the shorts she was wearing, understanding that hags thrived in frigid, wet climates. As the students filed out of the room, Professor Kane wondered if that was what it felt like to be a teacher all the time. At the moment, she was filled with a pride in having passed knowledge on to the next generation and it felt pretty damn good. She made a mental note to ask Minerva about it.

She figured that she would spend the weekend up in the far north in search of more hags, but had no idea when she would end up sorting things out with the dour head of Slytherin house. She wondered if she even could. As she thought about it, her fingers subconsciously found their way to her left temple, tracing the scar left there from so many years ago. She had been a completely different person then, almost unrecognizable compared to who she was now. Perhaps she had seen a bit of her former self in Miss Granger. Maybe that was why she had wanted to trust her. Thanatos shook her head, not wanting to accept that she had obviously misplaced her trust in Harry Potter's close friend. When she realized that her fingers were tirelessly tracing the jagged, raised skin on her temple, she immediately stopped, flattening her bangs down over the mark and forcing out the memories that inevitably flooded her mind whenever she acknowledged the scar. She had already decided that she would not let any of her past resurface now that she was back at Hogwarts, but her constant contact with Harry Potter and Severus Snape were making that a much more difficult resolution than she had imagined.

"I wonder what all that craziness this morning was about," said Hermione thoughtfully when she, Harry and Ron were seated together for lunch in the Great Hall.

"Dunno, but I wish we could have heard the rest after they went into the hall. Seems to me like she told Snape off for something." Ron was talking with his mouth full again.

"I wonder if it has anything to do with Septimus Lungren being expelled. I heard some Slytherins talking about it in the hallway after Advanced Arithmancy. They said he tried to hex a Hufflepuff first year, Omera Prescott. I understand her father is something like a warden at Azkaban."

"Didn't know they had wardens there. I suppose it makes sense though. Do you think the dementors effect him like they do the prisoners?" Harry shuddered thinking of the soul-sucking guards of the wizard prison. "Thats got to be the worst job- like ever."

"Not as bad as being Snape's hairdresser." Ron's comment got a burst of laughter from Harry and Hermione to the point that Harry inhaled the pumpkin juice he had taken a sip of; choking and laughing and causing quite a commotion.

When he was finally able to breathe again, he glanced around, somewhat relieved to see that at least a few people appeared concerned that he was just choking to death. They went back to whatever they were doing before the ruckus, but Harry noticed that two sets of eyes remained on him for some time after everyone else had lost interest in his evident survival. One pair, jet black and burning, were no doubt sorry that he hadn't died; but the other pair, stormy gray and calculating, were as always unreadable. Thinking again how very weird Professor Kane was, he finished up his lunch and headed to his afternoon classes.


End file.
